and not float around this earth like a ghost

"How would you ask someone how his journey was?"

Hi. It's been a long time since we've last talked. A lot of things have happened since then - The Grand Budapest Hotel came out, and Lauren Beukes published a new book, and Beyoncé made everyone freak out that one time. [I say that with the nonchalance of someone who most definitely did freak out.]

I'm someone who will commit to a diary every new year, and abandon it by January 2nd, only to make periodical returns when something is happening in my life that is so overwhelming that I find no other way to deal with it than by writing about it. Thinking it out with words that I can't say aloud. (A lot like Sumire, from Murakami's Sputnik Sweetheart. Did I mention that I finally started reading Murakami?)
I think Blogger is a lot like a diary. One shouldn't stick to posting rituals, or entry rituals, because then you're serving it, not yourself. You should be able to return to both, guilt free, when you need to most. And that's what I'm doing.

I re-watched Richard Ayoade's The Double today and it was as perfect as it was the first time. Based upon Dostoevsky's short story of the same name, it is another cinematic masterpiece from Ayoade - featuring this glorious cobalt blue/burnt sienna palette and fantastic performances from Jesse Eisenberg and Mia Wasikowska.

As with Submarine, it's the deliberate little details of The Double that make you fall in love with it; the minuscule movements that make the characters comfortingly real - from Simon's tell-tale Adam's apple showing him swallowing his words, to Hannah's tucking of her hair behind her ear, to the above screenshot.

Go watch it if you haven't.

Love always,
Zahra

and i still belong to no one else

Mazzy Star, Halah

comforting manatee

god bless the sea cows

it felt like you were in a Bruce Springsteen song

all images are copyright of Joe Maloney, who said, "“it felt like you were inside a Bruce Springsteen song" on being on the Jersey Shore during the late seventies and early eighties. captured below are carnival rides on the boardwalk, bikini-clad teenagers, and landscapes brimming with saturated hues and glowing lights. 

Blue Fence (1980)

 Casino (1980)

Girl in Cab (1980)

Reaching (1980)

Stocky (1980)

Sugar Ray Empress Match (1980)

Tall Couple (1980)

Girl With Stuffed Animals (1980)

Two Girls (1980)

Palace Amusements (1980)

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Monday, September 30, 2013
12:29 AM
in five hours and eight minutes, an alarm will tell me to wake up. as if i have not spent the past eight hours trying to drift into the arms of unwelcoming sleep.
the hum of the podcast presenter began to bore me at 10:30 PM. i paused his voice, hoping sleep would accept me soon. after two futile hours of meditatively counting sheep, i opened up my beckoning laptop. 
there is something to be said about surfing the internet when the rest of the world is asleep. a certain serene stillness attaches itself to every webpage, making reading articles with the quotation "plants have souls" in the title seem natural, visiting Facebook profiles of the deceased perfectly normal, and cyber-stalking best friends from elementary school acceptable.
why, in these hours in which i beg my body to slip into a state of unconsciousness, does this internet behavior feel somewhat necessary? perhaps my subconscious mind needs these confirmations of death or change of once-called friends to answer some of life's pressing questions that nag at my fragile consciousness.
in this state i wonder the following:

• which is worse: the beloved dead or the once-loved alive, continuing to exist without you in their life? 
• is everyone growing up except me?
• am i the only one who can't tell the difference between a National Geographic article and one from The Onion?
• how do people even fall asleep anymore?
• are enough people listening to Sea Oleena?

Sea Oleena, Untitled